U.S. budget cuts force Yellowstone to delay opening

A car travels the newly plowed east entrance road over Sylvan Pass in Yellowstone National Park shortly after the park opened in May 2011. (Ruffin Prevost/Reuters)

CODY, Wyo. - During the first full week
of March every year, the mountain passes of Yellowstone National
Park rumble with the sounds of hulking snow plows operated by
two dozen, mostly seasonal workers. This month, the plows will
be silent.

The costly and complex road-clearing operation that was
scheduled to start on Monday will be postponed this year because
of the U.S. government's across-the-board budget cuts known as
the "sequester," which took effect on Friday.

Park managers have to trim $1.75 million from Yellowstone's
$35 million annual budget, which will delay the opening of most
entrances to America's first national park by two weeks. Park
managers will give more details on Monday.

Local tourism industry leaders are not happy with the
decision. A delay in the park's traditional early May opening
and other service reductions could mean millions of dollars in
lost tourism and tax revenues for small, rural towns in Montana
and Wyoming.

"I think it's counterproductive, and I expect a lot of
people to be raising hell," said Mike Darby, whose family owns
the Irma Hotel in downtown Cody, Wyoming, at the east gate of
Yellowstone.

Built in 1902 by frontier showman Buffalo Bill Cody, the
hotel is decorated with bison heads and hunting rifles. The
business survives the lean winter months by drawing local
customers to its restaurant and Silver Saddle Lounge, where
cowboys meet for a beer on weekends.

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A two-week delay in Yellowstone's opening means Cody will
miss out on more than 150,000 visitors spending an estimated
$2.3 million, according to figures released by the Cody Country
Chamber of Commerce. Similar shortfalls in four other gateway
towns around the park could put total losses from a two-week
delayed opening at more than $10 million.

Beyond Yellowstone, the National Parks Conservation
Association has warned that a $110 million cut to the National
Park Service budget will result in job losses and reduced
services at the country's 398 national parks.

For example, the U.S. spending cuts could lead to a 20
percent reduction in spring student education programs at
Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, affecting
2,400 students; a two-week delay in the reopening of Glacier
National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road, which could cost $1
million in lost revenue daily to surrounding communities and
concessions; and a delay in the opening of the Grand Canyon
National Park's East and West Rim Drives, according to the NPCA.

"It's alarming that this very avoidable threat could become
a reality. From Yellowstone to Cape Cod, the Grand Canyon and
Great Smoky Mountains, our national heritage and local economies
are at risk," NPCA President Tom Kiernan said in a statement on
Thursday.

Crews work to plow Sylvan Pass, the highest point along the east entrance road into Yellowstone National Park in April 2011. (National Park Service handout/Reuters)

GRIZZLY BEARS

Yellowstone and neighboring Grand Teton National Park each
attracts roughly 3 million annual visitors who come to see
grizzly bears, geysers and wide-open spaces. The two parks
generated a total of $766 million in tourism spending in 2011,
supporting 11,438 jobs, according to a Michigan State University
analysis released last month.

If the budget cuts roll on through the summer, local
business owners fear that families may decide to vacation
elsewhere, which could mean disastrous losses in local tax
collections for gas, food, lodging and merchandise.

"They could end up losing more in taxes over the season than
what they saved with budget cuts," Darby said. "It's
ridiculous."

Some tourism leaders in Wyoming are working on their own
plans to raise money to plow the roads at Yellowstone, in an
effort to honor the spring opening dates that many families have
already planned their vacations around.

With a budget focused largely on fixed costs like fuel and
salaries for key employees, there are no easy cuts to be made in
Yellowstone's operating expenses.

"We really do have very few places that we can go" to cut
costs, said Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash. "Our workforce is
made up of a lot of seasonal employees, so that's certainly a
major area where we can make changes."

Plowing more than 300 miles (480 km) of high-altitude paved
roads in Yellowstone takes weeks, and burns through as much as
$10,000 worth of diesel fuel each day.

Waiting for warmer weather to help clear some of that snow
is expected save about $250,000 in plowing costs, Superintendent
Dan Wenk told Darby and other gateway community business leaders
this week in a conference call to outline planned cuts.

A further $1 million in savings will come from not hiring
replacements for some departing permanent workers. Wenk expects
to save an additional $500,000 by reducing the seasonal
workforce and through travel and training reductions.

In Jackson, Wyoming, at the southern boundary of Grand Teton
National Park, business owners are pushing to get the word out
that the parks and surrounding areas will be open for business
this summer, despite the cuts.

But budget cuts mean that three popular visitor centers in
Grand Teton will not open at all this summer, said park
spokeswoman Jackie Skaggs.

Since many maintenance workers and other seasonal employees
carry out double duties as on-call firefighters, paramedics or
search-and-rescue workers, payroll reductions will mean fewer
emergency responders in the park this summer.

"We will do our best not to allow those reductions to impact
the safety of our visitors and employees," Skaggs said. "But the
reality is our response capabilities will be reduced."

In staunchly conservative Wyoming - where legislators just
cut most state agency budgets by 6.5 percent despite virtually
no state debt and more than $15 billion in savings - the
across-the-board federal cuts are raising questions.

Residents who depend on tourism for a living are already
complaining to the state's all-Republican congressional
delegation, which is on record as supporting the cuts if it
means the alternative is raising taxes.

"I'm sorry, but in how this is affecting us, it doesn't seem
to me like it's fiscally responsible," Darby said. "Somebody
needs to refigure this, or we need to get better advocates."
(Editing by Barbara Goldberg, Tiffany Wu and Peter Cooney)

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